Probe launched to find two men posing as ticket examiners in Bengaluru

Coronavirus

The impostors were demanding fares for special Shramik trains from passengers in Bengaluru.

IANS

The South Western Railway (SWR) zone has begun an investigation to identify a duo who impersonated travelling ticket examiners (TTE) and demanded fare from migrants in a Shramik special train bound for Uttar Pradesh, an official said on Tuesday. "Investigation is on. First the persons need to be identified," railway zone spokesperson told IANS. The incident happened on Sunday in a special train packed with migrant labourers and departing from KSR Bengaluru station to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. The impostors started demanding Rs 905 from the passenger as fare to their destination. Incidentally, the matter came to light when an NGO (non-governmental organisation) tweeted about the incident, tagging some railway officials and the city police commissioner. One of the passengers called the NGO and complained about the matter. He told them that the impostors threatened to offload them from the train if they did not cough up the fare. The fake duo was seen wearing uniforms similar to a TTE. The Hindu reported that the video of this event was shot when the train was approaching Dharmavaram railway station. Both of them tried their trick in a few coaches but none of the passengers gave them the money, according to the official. "No one paid, I understand," said the official. On coming to know about the matter, the railway authorities checked the train and also announced at stations enroute about the matter to the migrants in the train. The train was also halted at Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur district where the railway police took the statement of the migrants. The railway zone is running daily Shramik special trains to multiple northern and eastern states and has already ferried more than 3 lakh people. Incidentally, travel for migrant workers back to their homes is now free after initially they had to pay around Rs 1,000 for their train journey to their hometowns.

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Mallikarjun Kharge and son Priyank get threat calls, complaint filed with K’taka DGP

TNM Staff

Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha candidate from Karnataka Mallikarjun Kharge and his son Priyank, a two-term minister received threat calls on Sunday, with the latter filing a complaint with the state police chief. Kharge, a former Union Minister, received the call in the wee hours of Sunday on his landline while his son Priyank later got a call from a private number on his mobile phone. Priyank lodged a complaint with the Director General of Police Praveen Sood, and former MLC Ramesh Babu shared the copy of the complaint on Twitter on Tuesday. In his complaint, Priyank Kharge stated that at about 1.30 am on Sunday, his father received a call on the landline where the caller spoke in Hindi and English and used invectives against the Congress veteran. The caller, according to the complaint, spoke about the Rajya Sabha election and threatened Kharge. Police are looking into the matter. Kharge is the Congress' pick for the June 19 Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka. JD(S) supremo and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and two BJP candidates have also filed nominations for the election to the Upper House. The Hindu also quoted a police officer as saying that Priyank has submitted call record details to the police along with the complaint and so far, no FIR (first information report) has been filed in connection with the incident. The Times of India reported that the case has been handed over to the Cybercrime police. The Rajya Sabha nomination for Kharge comes after in May, 2019, Kharge lost out to a relatively politically inexperienced opponent in the Lok Sabha elections. The stalwart who has been a nine-time MLA from Chittapur and two-time MP from Gulbarga, was pipped by Dr Umesh Jadav who had then joined the BJP from the Congress. The 76-year-old political behemoth had remained undefeated in every election he had contested in, prior to 2019. (With inputs from PTI)

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Spike in internet use in rural areas during COVID-19 lockdown: Karnataka Dy CM

Lockdown

Rural areas registered an increase of 35 to 40% in use of the internet during the lockdown in the last two to three months, CN Ashwath Narayan was quoted as saying.

PTI

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan on Tuesday said there has been a spike in use of the internet in rural areas during the COVID-19 induced lockdown period. Rural areas registered an increase of 35 to 40% in use of the internet during the lockdown in the last two to three months, he was quoted as saying by his office in a release. "There are 93,834 subscribers to BharatNet and had used 30,239 GB between January and May. This is the highest in recent years," he said. The DCM also said internet connectivity, provided under the government of India's BharatNet project, in rural areas will be improved in the next two to three months. "I reviewed the progress of the BharatNet implementation and the steps to be taken to improve the quality of internet connectivity in the next two to three months. We also discussed the possibility of giving the implementation of BharatNet to a different agency. We will seek permission from the Central government and continue the project," Narayan said. The DCM, who is also in-charge of IT, BT and Science and Technology, today held a video conference with heads of different agencies and officials on improving the quality of internet in rural areas. BSNL officials and other agency representatives, who attended, explained problems faced by them, and Narayan assured them that their issues would be solved through proper coordination, the release said. Noting that through BharatNet, several government schemes are being implemented in rural areas, Civic Service Centres are issuing birth and death certificates, Aadhar, social security pensions, among others, the DCM said, of the total 6,000 Gram Panchayats in the state, 4,000 have good high speed internet connectivity. Remaining will be provided with better internet connectivity through a new agency, he said.

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Karnataka reports 161 new COVID-19 cases, two deaths in state

Coronavirus

Yadgir district reported the highest number of new cases at 61.

TNM Staff

PTI representive image

The Karnataka government's latest bulletin on Tuesday evening states that there are a total of 161 new cases of COVID-19 in the state. This brings the total active cases in the state to 3,248. The total number of reported cases in the state is currently 5,921. There are two COVID-19 related deaths reported in the state on Tuesday. One patient was a 65-year-old man from Bengaluru who was diagnosed with an influenza-like illness. He had known comorbidities of diabetes, hypertension and chronic kidney disease. He was admitted to the hospital on June 3, and passed away on June 8. The second was a 17-year-old girl from Kalaburagi. She complained of fever, headache and breathlessness. She was known to have demyelinating disorder, a condition that results in damage to the myelin sheath that surrounds nerve fibres. She was admitted to the hospital on June 6 and passed away on the same day. Out of the 161 reported cases on Tuesday, 91 patients are interstate passengers while 24 of the patients are international passengers. District wise, Yadgiri has reported the maximum number of cases in the state with 61 new cases. This brings the total positive cases in the state to 642. The total active cases in the district are 550. Three patients had returned from Gujarat while the rest had all returned from Maharashtra. Bengaluru urban district has reported 29 new cases on Tuesday. The total positives in the city so far is 522. The total active cases in this city are 204. Most cases in the city have been reported as contacts of previous cases. Four patient’s contacts are still under tracing. Meanwhile, three others have returned from international travel from Kuwait, two patients were reported with influenza-like illness (ILI). Dakshina Kannada district has reported 23 new cases. The total positive cases in the state are 210, while there are 118 active cases in the district currently. Twenty-one cases were reported from UAE, who came as international travellers. Two other patients have returned from Maharashtra. Kalaburagi district has reported 10 new cases. This brings the total number of active cases in the district to 548. The total positive cases reported in the district so far is 769, which makes it the worst affected district in the state. The new cases reported have all returned from Maharashtra except for one patient whose contact was still under tracing. Other districts have reported single digit cases. Bidar district has reported the maximum number of discharges on Tuesday with 42 discharges. Hassana district reported 28 discharges, and Vijayapura district reported 27 discharges. Chikkaballapura district reported 17 discharges. There are currently 12 people who are admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU). The state has reported that 24,408 people are under observation for being the primary contacts of known COVID-19 cases. Also, there are 18,092 patients who are under observation for being secondary contacts. This brings the total number of people who are under active observation of the state to 42,500.

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Karnataka govt denies permission for DK Shivakumar’s swearing-in ceremony

Politics

This is the third time the Karnataka government has denied permission for the event.

TNM Staff

The Karnataka government has again denied permission to rival Congress for the swearing-in ceremony of DK Shivakumar, who takes over as the President of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. With this, the BS Yediyurappa-led state government has denied permission for the event for the third time. Reacting to the development, the Karnataka Congress has claimed that the state government is indulging in vendetta politics.  The  'Pratijna Dina' or Pledge Day program was scheduled to be held on June 14. The Congress said that the event was to be held across 7800 locations in the state and was supposed to be held with precautions to arrest the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). According to party sources, Shivakumar who is known to be a firm believer of astrology wanted to be sworn in on June 7 as suggested by his astrologers. A party insider claimed that there was no reason for the permission to be disallowed. The source said, “We are not even having a crowd anywhere. Just panchayat level meetings with social distancing. We have already rehearsed it multiple days and have taught people to use Zoom apps for video conferencing and practice physical distancing.” Shivakumar, who was former minister in multiple governments including the recent HD Kumaraswamy government was appointed as the KPCC president on March 11. The appointment came post the poor performance of the party in the Lok Sabha Elections and the collapse of the Congress-JD(S) alliance government. He succeeded former minister and son of former Chief Minister, Dinesh Gundu Rao.  The party had initially planned to hold the event on March 31 and later postponed it to June 7 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. But his request was not granted as guidelines issued by the state and central governments as part of the COVID-19 restrictions bans political congregations. Speaking to reporters on this, Shivakumar had said that only a meeting of 150 people will take place in every area and it won’t compromise the safety protocols. In an interview with TNM, Shivakumar who had earned the moniker of troubleshooter in chief for his party had said that he wants to transform the party into a cadre-based outfit.

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Engineering students of VTU in Karnataka demand cancellation of exams

Education

According to a survey by AIDSO, more than 90 percent of VTU’s engineering students say that they ‘did not understand’ online classes.

Alithea Stephanie Mounika

Students of technological courses under Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Karnataka are up in arms, demanding the cancellation of proposed exams. The All India Democratic Students Organisation has written a petition to the Vice Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) asking them to cancel exams based on online classes held during the lockdown period. In the letter, AIDSO has noted that many have suffered because they were not able to access these classes. “Only a quarter of the Indian population owns smartphones. Internet reach in India, including urban areas, is merely 36%. Meagre is the number of students having a smart phone with an active internet pack. Ground reality revealed from various survey reports including those by National Sample Survey, Ministry of Rural Development (says that), ‘nearly half of the villages have power connection for half a day daily’. National lockdown to contain the spread of COVID 19 has aggravated the already existing problems. During the lockdown period, families of poor farmers and workers are struggling to meet everyday needs. Amidst this grave crisis, online classes have snatched away the basic right to education from lakhs of students.” According to a survey conducted by AIDSO on 4,000 VTU students, it was found that 77.3% of them did not attend a majority of the classes, while 91.2% of students said that they could not follow the classes which they attended. Another 97.1% of students said that they are not ready to face the examination based on online classes. The statement from AIDSO noted, “The fear of lagging behind in academics is looming large in students’ minds and the students are deeply afraid for their future.” A student from Shimoga who preferred not to be named, said, “We didn’t have normal live online classes, but rather, lecture videos, where there is a powerpoint presentation, and the teacher keeps reading what is on the slide. None of us were able to follow what was happening, and we weren’t even able to clarify doubts if any arise. These are highly technical subjects which cannot be understood based on PPTs. We were also not able to do our practicals, which causes problems for us in understanding the subject.”

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With first COVID-19 case, Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar district loses green tag

Coronavirus

Only Tumakuru and Chitradurga have a lesser testing ratio than Chamrajangara as of Tuesday.

TNM Staff

Representational image

Karnataka’s Chamrajnagar district, the only one so far to not have a single case of COVID-19 has lost its “green” status after the district reported its first case on Tuesday. Until Tuesday morning, the district bordering Mysuru was the only green district in the state with no known cases of COVID-19. With this, all 30 districts in the state have at least a single case of COVID-19. According to officials, the patient is a 25-year-old man and returned from Maharashtra recently. He was put in institutional quarantine following his return. District officials remain tightlipped over the development.  Despite multiple attempts, TNM could not elicit a response from concerned authorities. It has been learnt that the district administration will hold a press conference and share relevant details only in the evening. According to data compiled by the Karnataka COVID-19 War Room,  3808 cases out of the total 5760 cases reported in Karnataka until Monday evening are all patients who have recently returned from Maharashtra. The district administration in Chamarajanagar have been conducting tests for COVID-19 following the state health department protocols until now. According to data tabled by the State War Room, the district has the third lowest testing rate per million in the last 10 days. Only Tumakuru and Chitradurga have a lesser testing ratio than Chamrajangara. Going by the State War Room data, 631 persons per million population in the district has been tested. In terms of real numbers, 3051 persons have been tested till June 6. As things stand Kodagu (2), Tumakuru (3), Mysuru (6), Kopal (4), Ramngara (4) are the only districts with the number of active cases in single digits. In many districts, the active cases are in triple figures with Udupi district being the worst affected. The coastal district has 628 active cases, followed by Kalaburagi which has 539 active cases and Yadgir which has 488 cases. Another Hyderabad-Karnataka district Raichur has 276 active cases as of Monday evening. In total nine out of the 30 districts have more than 100 active cases as the total number of cases stand at 5760. Bengaluru Urban, the capital city has a total of 176 cases.

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